Joanna Radin
Biographic Data
| ID | 83705 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joanna Radin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joanna |
| FAMILY NAME | Radin |
| SIGNATURE | RADIN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2332-6535 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 180 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Kugel as Continuity
After Ice
As the climate warms and the hydrological cycle falters, ice is no longer a reliable feature of higher latitudes or winter seasons. What are the consequences of the planet’s waning capacity to cool? In other words, what comes after ice? This collection examines the implications of the end of consistent freezing and thawing cycles. After Ice gathers experts in a wide range of disciplines to articulate aspects of the cold humanities. They investiga…
Blood Relations
Why Did They Die
In the second half of the twentieth century, Indigenous populations from different parts of the world were identified as key subjects in a wide range of investigations into patterns of human biological variation. Focusing on Amazonia, a prominent region for such research, this paper explores some of the complex relationships between biomedicine, anthropological knowledge, political regimes, and Indigenous rights. We focus on the roles of Francis …
Alternative Facts and States of Fear
The Speculative Present
I argue for the importance of considering author, director, and producer Michael Crichton (1942–2008) as a critic and student of Cold War cultures of expertise. Though best known for his blockbuster fiction, he shared a sensibility with academics in North America and the United Kingdom who were concerned with scientists’ unchecked authority. These scholars created a new field that would later become known as Science and Technology Studies or STS.…
Ethics in Human Biology
The practice of human biology requires the negotiation of a range of ethical issues, including the politics of race and indigeneity, the appropriate use of research materials, and the relationship between researchers and those people from whose bodies they seek to gain knowledge. Grounding my discussion in a history of the field, I discuss key ethical turning points that have shaped the present. These include the field's complex historical relati…
Cryopolitics
Introduction
Digital Natives
This case considers the politics of reuse in the realm of "Big Data." It focuses on the history of a particular collection of data, extracted and digitized from patient records made in the course of a longitudinal epidemiological study involving Indigenous members of the Gila River Indian Community Reservation in the American Southwest. The creation and circulation of the Pima Indian Diabetes Dataset (PIDD) demonstrates the value of medical and I…
Life on Ice
Collections d’échantillons biologiques autochtones et cryopolitique de la vie congelée
In the mid-twentieth century, scientists began to collect and freeze blood samples for a range of purposes. This article considers the broader implications of scientific freezing for time and life by drawing on interviews with scientists associated with a large collection of samples collected from Indigenous Australians in the 1960s. We first review some key critiques of cryopreservation posed by Indigenous scholars and by science and technology …
Patrons of the Human Experience
The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research has played a critical but little-understood role in the development of the social and biological sciences since 1941. For anthropology particularly, its programs have often helped redefine scholarly priorities and research trajectories. Its grants to doctoral students have functioned as an important early sign of scholarly legitimacy, a mark of belonging to the profession. The foundation's h…
Planning for the past
This chapter first attempts to add texture to the endangerment sensibility as it pertains to efforts to salvage biodiversity through practices of cryopreservation. The endangerment sensibility sees biodiversity as worthy of protection because of its inherent i.e. non-instrumental worth. The chapter then summarizes the technical conditions of possibility that supported the uptake of liquid nitrogen as a resource for freezing life. It also presents…
Human Genome Diversity Project
Indigenous biospecimen collections and the cryopolitics of frozen life
In the mid-20th century, scientists began to collect and freeze blood samples for a range of purposes. This article considers the broader implications of scientific freezing for conceptions of time and life by drawing on empirical research with scientists associated with a large collection of samples assembled from Indigenous Australians in the 1960s. We first review some key critiques of cryopreservation posed by Indigenous scholars and by scien…
Indigenous blood and ethical regimes in the United States and Australia since the 1960s
Blood samples collected from members of indigenous communities in the mid-20th century by scientists interested in human variation remain frozen today in institutional repositories around the world. This article focuses on two such collections-one established and maintained in the United States and the other in Australia. Through historical and ethnographic analysis, we show how scientific knowledge about the human species and ethical knowledge a…
Planned Hindsight
By the early 1980s, many life scientists had begun to maintain small collections of cryopreserved tissues for their own specific research purposes. It became apparent that these materials could be successfully reused as new techniques and research questions emerged. This realization led several American leaders in the field of systematic taxonomy (the science of biological classification) and conservation genetics to argue for the need to take st…
Unfolding epidemiological stories
Latent life
Before the rise of DNA sequence analysis or the controversies over the Human Genome Diversity Project, there was the International Biological Program, which ran from 1964 to 1974. The Human Adaptability arm of the International Biological Program featured a complex encounter between human geneticists and biological anthropologists. These scientists were especially interested in what could be learned from the bodies of people they referred to as b…
Indigenous body parts, mutating temporalities, and the half-lives of postcolonial technoscience
Biological samples collected from indigenous communities from the mid-20th century for scientific study and preserved in freezers of the Global North have been at the center of a number of controversies. This essay explores why the problem of indigenous biospecimens has returned to critical attention frequently over the past two decades, and why and how Science and Technology Studies should attend to this problem. We propose that mutation - the v…
Studying Mandela's Children
In this interview, human biologist Noel Cameron reflects on his work on child growth and development in post-apartheid South Africa. The conversation focuses in particular on Cameron's involvement with a cohort study called Birth to Twenty, which sought to determine the health impacts of apartheid on black children born in the year Nelson Mandela became president. Cameron considers the extent to which human population biology can contribute to th…
Bounding an emerging technology
‘Nanotechnology’ is often touted as a significant emerging technological field. However, determining what nanotechnology means, whose research counts as nanotechnology, and who gets to speak on behalf of nanotechnology is a highly political process involving constant negotiation with significant implications for funding, legislation, and citizen support. In this paper, we deconstruct a high-profile moment of controversy about nanotechnology’s pos…
Latent life
Before the rise of DNA sequence analysis or the controversies over the Human Genome Diversity Project, there was the International Biological Program, which ran from 1964 to 1974. The Human Adaptability arm of the International Biological Program featured a complex encounter between human geneticists and biological anthropologists. These scientists were especially interested in what could be learned from the bodies of people they referred to as b…
Indigenous body parts, mutating temporalities, and the half-lives of postcolonial technoscience
Biological samples collected from indigenous communities from the mid-20th century for scientific study and preserved in freezers of the Global North have been at the center of a number of controversies. This essay explores why the problem of indigenous biospecimens has returned to critical attention frequently over the past two decades, and why and how Science and Technology Studies should attend to this problem. We propose that mutation - the v…
Digital Natives
This case considers the politics of reuse in the realm of "Big Data." It focuses on the history of a particular collection of data, extracted and digitized from patient records made in the course of a longitudinal epidemiological study involving Indigenous members of the Gila River Indian Community Reservation in the American Southwest. The creation and circulation of the Pima Indian Diabetes Dataset (PIDD) demonstrates the value of medical and I…
Indigenous biospecimen collections and the cryopolitics of frozen life
In the mid-20th century, scientists began to collect and freeze blood samples for a range of purposes. This article considers the broader implications of scientific freezing for conceptions of time and life by drawing on empirical research with scientists associated with a large collection of samples assembled from Indigenous Australians in the 1960s. We first review some key critiques of cryopreservation posed by Indigenous scholars and by scien…
Indigenous blood and ethical regimes in the United States and Australia since the 1960s
Blood samples collected from members of indigenous communities in the mid-20th century by scientists interested in human variation remain frozen today in institutional repositories around the world. This article focuses on two such collections-one established and maintained in the United States and the other in Australia. Through historical and ethnographic analysis, we show how scientific knowledge about the human species and ethical knowledge a…
Unfolding epidemiological stories
Patrons of the Human Experience
The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research has played a critical but little-understood role in the development of the social and biological sciences since 1941. For anthropology particularly, its programs have often helped redefine scholarly priorities and research trajectories. Its grants to doctoral students have functioned as an important early sign of scholarly legitimacy, a mark of belonging to the profession. The foundation's h…
Ethics in Human Biology
The practice of human biology requires the negotiation of a range of ethical issues, including the politics of race and indigeneity, the appropriate use of research materials, and the relationship between researchers and those people from whose bodies they seek to gain knowledge. Grounding my discussion in a history of the field, I discuss key ethical turning points that have shaped the present. These include the field's complex historical relati…
Planned Hindsight
By the early 1980s, many life scientists had begun to maintain small collections of cryopreserved tissues for their own specific research purposes. It became apparent that these materials could be successfully reused as new techniques and research questions emerged. This realization led several American leaders in the field of systematic taxonomy (the science of biological classification) and conservation genetics to argue for the need to take st…
Alternative Facts and States of Fear
Bounding an emerging technology
‘Nanotechnology’ is often touted as a significant emerging technological field. However, determining what nanotechnology means, whose research counts as nanotechnology, and who gets to speak on behalf of nanotechnology is a highly political process involving constant negotiation with significant implications for funding, legislation, and citizen support. In this paper, we deconstruct a high-profile moment of controversy about nanotechnology’s pos…
Why Did They Die
In the second half of the twentieth century, Indigenous populations from different parts of the world were identified as key subjects in a wide range of investigations into patterns of human biological variation. Focusing on Amazonia, a prominent region for such research, this paper explores some of the complex relationships between biomedicine, anthropological knowledge, political regimes, and Indigenous rights. We focus on the roles of Francis …
The Speculative Present
I argue for the importance of considering author, director, and producer Michael Crichton (1942–2008) as a critic and student of Cold War cultures of expertise. Though best known for his blockbuster fiction, he shared a sensibility with academics in North America and the United Kingdom who were concerned with scientists’ unchecked authority. These scholars created a new field that would later become known as Science and Technology Studies or STS.…
Bounding an emerging technology
‘Nanotechnology’ is often touted as a significant emerging technological field. However, determining what nanotechnology means, whose research counts as nanotechnology, and who gets to speak on behalf of nanotechnology is a highly political process involving constant negotiation with significant implications for funding, legislation, and citizen support. In this paper, we deconstruct a high-profile moment of controversy about nanotechnology’s pos…
Studying Mandela's Children
In this interview, human biologist Noel Cameron reflects on his work on child growth and development in post-apartheid South Africa. The conversation focuses in particular on Cameron's involvement with a cohort study called Birth to Twenty, which sought to determine the health impacts of apartheid on black children born in the year Nelson Mandela became president. Cameron considers the extent to which human population biology can contribute to th…
Latent life
Before the rise of DNA sequence analysis or the controversies over the Human Genome Diversity Project, there was the International Biological Program, which ran from 1964 to 1974. The Human Adaptability arm of the International Biological Program featured a complex encounter between human geneticists and biological anthropologists. These scientists were especially interested in what could be learned from the bodies of people they referred to as b…
Indigenous body parts, mutating temporalities, and the half-lives of postcolonial technoscience
Biological samples collected from indigenous communities from the mid-20th century for scientific study and preserved in freezers of the Global North have been at the center of a number of controversies. This essay explores why the problem of indigenous biospecimens has returned to critical attention frequently over the past two decades, and why and how Science and Technology Studies should attend to this problem. We propose that mutation - the v…
Unfolding epidemiological stories
Planning for the past
This chapter first attempts to add texture to the endangerment sensibility as it pertains to efforts to salvage biodiversity through practices of cryopreservation. The endangerment sensibility sees biodiversity as worthy of protection because of its inherent i.e. non-instrumental worth. The chapter then summarizes the technical conditions of possibility that supported the uptake of liquid nitrogen as a resource for freezing life. It also presents…
Human Genome Diversity Project
Indigenous biospecimen collections and the cryopolitics of frozen life
In the mid-20th century, scientists began to collect and freeze blood samples for a range of purposes. This article considers the broader implications of scientific freezing for conceptions of time and life by drawing on empirical research with scientists associated with a large collection of samples assembled from Indigenous Australians in the 1960s. We first review some key critiques of cryopreservation posed by Indigenous scholars and by scien…
Indigenous blood and ethical regimes in the United States and Australia since the 1960s
Blood samples collected from members of indigenous communities in the mid-20th century by scientists interested in human variation remain frozen today in institutional repositories around the world. This article focuses on two such collections-one established and maintained in the United States and the other in Australia. Through historical and ethnographic analysis, we show how scientific knowledge about the human species and ethical knowledge a…
Planned Hindsight
By the early 1980s, many life scientists had begun to maintain small collections of cryopreserved tissues for their own specific research purposes. It became apparent that these materials could be successfully reused as new techniques and research questions emerged. This realization led several American leaders in the field of systematic taxonomy (the science of biological classification) and conservation genetics to argue for the need to take st…
Life on Ice
Collections d’échantillons biologiques autochtones et cryopolitique de la vie congelée
In the mid-twentieth century, scientists began to collect and freeze blood samples for a range of purposes. This article considers the broader implications of scientific freezing for time and life by drawing on interviews with scientists associated with a large collection of samples collected from Indigenous Australians in the 1960s. We first review some key critiques of cryopreservation posed by Indigenous scholars and by science and technology …
Patrons of the Human Experience
The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research has played a critical but little-understood role in the development of the social and biological sciences since 1941. For anthropology particularly, its programs have often helped redefine scholarly priorities and research trajectories. Its grants to doctoral students have functioned as an important early sign of scholarly legitimacy, a mark of belonging to the profession. The foundation's h…
Cryopolitics
Introduction
Digital Natives
This case considers the politics of reuse in the realm of "Big Data." It focuses on the history of a particular collection of data, extracted and digitized from patient records made in the course of a longitudinal epidemiological study involving Indigenous members of the Gila River Indian Community Reservation in the American Southwest. The creation and circulation of the Pima Indian Diabetes Dataset (PIDD) demonstrates the value of medical and I…
Ethics in Human Biology
The practice of human biology requires the negotiation of a range of ethical issues, including the politics of race and indigeneity, the appropriate use of research materials, and the relationship between researchers and those people from whose bodies they seek to gain knowledge. Grounding my discussion in a history of the field, I discuss key ethical turning points that have shaped the present. These include the field's complex historical relati…
Alternative Facts and States of Fear
The Speculative Present
I argue for the importance of considering author, director, and producer Michael Crichton (1942–2008) as a critic and student of Cold War cultures of expertise. Though best known for his blockbuster fiction, he shared a sensibility with academics in North America and the United Kingdom who were concerned with scientists’ unchecked authority. These scholars created a new field that would later become known as Science and Technology Studies or STS.…
Why Did They Die
In the second half of the twentieth century, Indigenous populations from different parts of the world were identified as key subjects in a wide range of investigations into patterns of human biological variation. Focusing on Amazonia, a prominent region for such research, this paper explores some of the complex relationships between biomedicine, anthropological knowledge, political regimes, and Indigenous rights. We focus on the roles of Francis …
Blood Relations
After Ice
As the climate warms and the hydrological cycle falters, ice is no longer a reliable feature of higher latitudes or winter seasons. What are the consequences of the planet’s waning capacity to cool? In other words, what comes after ice? This collection examines the implications of the end of consistent freezing and thawing cycles. After Ice gathers experts in a wide range of disciplines to articulate aspects of the cold humanities. They investiga…
Kugel as Continuity
Political science (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Race, Genetics, and Society (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Environmental ethics (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Anthropology (7 works) · Biology (7 works) · History (7 works)